Customer Reviews

Social Media Marketing for Writers: How To Blog, Tweet, & Peep Your Way Onto Amazon's Best Seller's List

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I recently found a great book recommendation through my friend, author Beth Vogt. She posted a review of Edie Melson's ebook, Social Media Marketing for Writers. I have a hard enough time managing to write in between blogging and social media, so I was interested to hear how another author handled the juggling act.

I was pleasantly surprised at the $.99 price for the book. Once it downloaded to my Kindle (remember that Kindle books can download to PCs, Macs, and smartphones). But once I read the book, I realized it answered most of the questions I was asking about marketing for authors. Things like:

How to keep social media from taking over your life. My biggest fear is that social media will consume my time, and that I'll be so distracted, and pulled in so many directions, I won't focus on my manuscript. Melson wisely answers these issues by sharing her own social media schedule--which is quite manageable.

How to offer something of value to your audience. Three ways to get your name out there without making it 'all about you'. Readers respond better to a generous writer. Melson shares several ways to do this, and includes mistakes to avoid when posting on Twitter and Facebook.

Whether to blog . . . or not. Blogging doesn't work for everyone. Melin helps writers decide whether to blog by sharing four ways blogging works for writers, and four ways it doesn't work. Each point is explained in detail. Melin helps writers think through the purpose of their blog, and who their audience is.

The how-tos. For blogging beginners, Melson gives step-by-step instructions on starting a blog. How to make your blog post to Facebook automatically. How to get started with Twitter--and a primer on Twitter etiquette. Melson's Twitter explanations really helped me a lot. I have a Twitter account (@DebbieMaxAllen, if you're interested), but I'm still learning how to wrap my brain around using tweets and hashtags. Melin's advice is helping tremendously, with analogies that make it easier to understand. She also gives tips on how to compose compelling tweets and Facebook posts.

Writing your professional bio. The three kinds of biographical information writers need, what each should contain, and when to use each of them. Melson takes writers through a four-step process of asking themselves questions for a painless bio.

How to tie everything in to Amazon. The book giant will be a big part of your marketing life. Writers can take full advantage of their Amazon author page with a bio and photo, and more importantly tie their blog into their author page.

I've already begun highlighting many sections of Melson's book. She gets right to the point on each topic, so I don't feel like I'm wading through unnecessary information. And for $.99, the price is right!

This eBook does have a lot of good information but I found it to more about the creation and set-up of social media rather than tips and strategy. I was also disappointed to find that there wasn't a lot of mention about how to tie your social media efforts back to Amazon. That being said, even thought I've worked in social media for a while now, Melson still had some advice I had never thought to utilize before.

Whether you are already a published author or are an emerging author on your way to publication, Social Marketing for Writers: How to Blog, Tweet, & Peep Your Way onto Amazon's Best Seller's List by Edie Melson is a good choice for learning the reasons to engage in social marketing and the results you can achieve by actively participating.

Taken from her notes and research, Edie Melson presents a beginner's guide to navigating your way through Twitter and Facebook.
Edie Melson focuses primarily on the benefits of utilizing the many features of TweetDeck, an Adobe AIR desktop application for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn , Google Buzz, Foursquare, and MySpace to simplify posting across varies networks.

The importance of writers to establish their platforms is discussed in her sections on blogging. Here, the focus is primarily on Blogger,a free weblog publishing tool from Google, for sharing text, photos and video.

Every writer should be have an online presence. Social Marketing for Writers: How to Blog, Tweet, & Peep Your Way onto Amazon's Best Seller's List provides easy to understand step by step process for the writers entering social media.

Reviewed by: Keiki Hendrix
Reviewed for: The Vessel Project

It's a brief read, but it doesn't need to be long. Busy people need a guide that gets to the point, sans rambling, and this guide does just that. Relatively speaking, it's a 99 cent book, so the volume of material is enough to justify the price. My advice to people reading this book--and others just like it--is to understand that the author must bring up a few obvious things (i.e. having Twitter, Facebook, Blogger) in order to teach you the less obvious things about using them. This was 99 cents well spent. I'm sure I'll take great value from it! :D

Although I was already familiar with a lot of the information in this book, I still found it to be a good read. I read it in a sitting and took a few notes. Most useful for me: the details about the author bio and Twitter strategies. Worth .99 maybe even $2.99.

Social Media Marketing for Writers: How To Blog, Tweet, & Peep Your Way Onto Amazon's Best Seller's List is one of the best resources for writers, whether you're just starting out or have years of experience. Edie Melson explains everything from why writers should have a presence online, why, and how to go about creating one for yourself. It's easy to understand and takes you step by step through the process. A definite must for any writer's library.

A must read for any writer, but especially for us "oldies" who are techno-challenged. It gives step by step instructions of what to do and where to do it at. Great information.

Appreciate the helpful information concisely delivered in this e-book. I would have given it 5 stars if wordpress as well as blogger was covered. I had already gotten into wordpress so there I will stay. Otherwise I liked the clearly given path to follow. Thanks!

This is a great book for writers venturing into the field of social networking. The author provides clear examples of how to tweet, set up a blog, pre-post, grow your Facebook fans and expand the readership for your books. Sure, there are other books that cover social networking, but the content in this book comes from countless hours of both "doing" social networking and teaching the skills at writer's conferences. Google the author's name and you'll see she's faculty or co-director at several major writing conferences. The gal knows her stuff. And you will, too, after you've purchased a copy of Social Marketing for Writers.

The other book I'd recommend on the subject: How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months! by John Locke.

Every author needs these two books on their Kindle.

Edie does a fantastic job breaking down the "gobbledygook" of social media and making it easy to follow in step by step format. Great for new writers just learning the lingo unique to social marketing. Simple for anyone to understand and apply!